The Pitch writes about the Star writing about The New York Times writing about Kansas City and other news from the Internet

Yesterday, The New York Times published a short item in its Travel section about Westport. The piece, titled “In Kansas City, All Things Craft,” highlighted five businesses in the ‘hood with a local/craft/artisanal bent: Julep, Port Fonda, Oddly Correct, Ca Va, and the Bunker.

Westport’s emergence as a place to eat, drink and shop well, as opposed to just party, is a topic about which we wrote a cover story last year. But the Times is arguably the most well-respected news organization on the planet, with a massive global readership, and so it is very cool when it turns its gaze to KC. 

Such an event also gives other media outlets an opportunity to turn the Times‘ story into their own story, thereby driving traffic to their own websites. Hence The Kansas City Star’s piece today: “The New York Times spotlights Westport’s cocktails, coffee and charcuterie.” 

Or this very post, which exists to generate traffic at our site, alert our readers who have not yet seen the Times‘ Westport story, and ponder the question of whether our lives possess meaning outside the echo chamber of Internet lists about the cities we live in. 

Just kidding! But here is some additional recent news written, aggregated and repackaged to exploit Internet users’ base-level hometown-pride instincts:

Kansas City is the third-best city in the United States to be a foodie, according to Travel + Leisure, behind Houston and Providence. So, to summarize, according to this publication, Kansas City, Houston and Providence are the three top places to eat food in the United States, assuming the horrible word “foodie” still means what we think it means? With all due respect to the many excellent restaurants in Kansas City, these findings seem, um, preposterous? But OK! Share it on Facebook, baby! 

Don’t share this other thing, though, where some barbecue expert says the best burnt ends in America are not in Kansas City, but instead at some place in St. Louis. Boo! Hiss! Let’s argue about it on a website! 

Esquire today released online its annual Best Bars in America issue, which will spawn hundreds of highly clickable stories for local news outlets across the land. One of its Best Bars is Grandma’s Bar & Grill, in the West Bottoms. Actually, we have nothing snarky to say about this pick. We love Grandma’s, and it’s kind of impressive that Esquire is aware of it, considering our anecdotal experience is that not a lot of folks in town even know it exists. 

But Esquire also named St. Louis its “Bar City of the Year.” Oh no! Hate those Cardinals so much. 

As we were writing this post, we received an email from a publicist teasing a “story” about Kansas City’s inclusion in a national “Top Ten” list to be revealed tomorrow. So be on the lookout for that bombshell announcement from a “media” “outlet” tomorrow.